Shipping and Mass Production updates

Shipping

Pebble will start shipping today! We'll be sending out the first batch to the very first backers this afternoon. There are still some kinks and issues that we need to work out, but I'm glad to say we've made it this far.

Notes:

Pebble iOS App is not yet available in the App Store. We submitted 2 weeks ago and have been responding to reviewer feedback. For the moment, iOS users who receive Pebble early will be able to do notifications/Music control but will not be able to install watchfaces or upgrade to the latest PebbleOS until the app appears in the App Store.

Android app will go live on Google Play on Thursday Jan 24

We weren't able to get as many units to our fulfillment centre as we expected (held up by documentation at the airport). Less than 500 units are going out today, with more expected to ship soon.

We accidentally more Address Confirmations emails than available Pebbles. So some people who received address confirmation emails will not get a tracking number for a few days until their Pebble ships out.

We're also working on adding shipment tracking to account.getpebble.com. Please do not email us right now about shipment tracking, we will not be able to provide any information over email about the status of your Pebble. As soon as this functionality is finished, we'll post an update and you'll be able to check online. Sorry for the delay on this.

Mass Production

As we mentioned during the last announcement, mass production has started at the factory. It's awesome to walk along the assembly line and see thousands of Pebble components in various states of readiness. It's going to take some time before we reach our maximum capacity, but we're getting there.

PCB (bottom left) and FPC (hanging out on the pink foam)

FPC after depanelization (being trimmed from supporting material) and PCB

We have more than 1,000 glue jigs on the production line.

It's 5 o'clock somewhere!

Ah a beautiful sight...finished product, all boxed up and ready to be placed in 60-Pebble master shipping cartons.

As of today, the factory is manufacturing roughly 800-1,000 Pebbles per day. We're working hard to get this up to our full capacity (2.4k per day)

We are shipping master cartons of Pebbles by air freight across the Pacific to our US distribution center 1-2 times per week, and 1-2 times per week to our Hong Kong distribution center which fulfills shipments to any country that isn't the US. There is a 5-7 day lag between a Pebble coming off the assembly line, and it arriving in a fulfillment center for shipping.

Right now at the beginning of the manufacturing run, we're building batches of 1 colour at a time. Since black was by far the most popular colour, we started with a run of black Pebbles. I realize that this is different than what I said before...while we would have liked to be able to ship out all the colours at the exact same time, it's proven to be impossible. We're doing our best to bring production of other colors on-line as soon as possible. (This doesn't mean we're producing every single black Pebble first)

#PebbleTime contest

During the press conference, thousands of people tweeted with the hashtag #pebbletime and posted questions on Facebook and Reddit. The winner of the Clear Pebble contest is Luke K. (from Facebook) for asking a great question: "What is the most interesting/unique idea for the use of a pebble that you have heard to date?"

I didn't have a good answer at the time, so I wanted to follow up. There was a thread on our forums.getpebble.com recently about how to use Pebble to, ahem...creatively bend school rules during exams. Definitely one of the most unique Pebble use cases!

Runner up's for the contest will receive t-shirts and some other swag: @flashpunk, Phoebe Furby Sturges (from Facebook), captbunzo (from Reddit). Winners, please send us a message via Kickstarter and we'll get your gear sent out!

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Our job is most definitely not finished, we have lots of improvements to make, and tens of thousands of Pebbles to ship out. We will continue our biweekly updates, and as was mentioned 2 weeks ago, we'll be issuing software updates with new features for Pebble every 2-3 weeks.

Thanks for the support, everyone! Looking forward to hearing what you think of Pebble when it finally makes it onto your wrist.

Comments

I really regret backing this project now. It's been a year since I backed and still no projection of even when my watch will be shipped. It will be out dated technology before it even reaches my wrist. A sad end to a promising project.

I try to be patient, but it is very hard! Regret to have changed from black to white.
It is a pity that they are not able to forecast when to expect the Pebble. When do you
start the production of the white Pebble?

Trying my best to be understanding and patient, but after 6 months of waiting, the excitement of getting my watch is waning. Really hope they pick up production soon. (kicking myself for not getting black now)

People, I think it would help if those who have received their pebbles post the dates they ordered/backed/payment charged, so other like us could get some idea of when to expect a shipment. Say, something like:

can i ask a stupid question. I paid a little more for a color watch and i am paid for shipping as i am out side the USA how come i paid more than some people and i know there are more people thinking this as did they. yet we are not getting shipped to first? it seems like the USA backers are having more sent out. As john said 1 day ago there was 1000 but today there is 2.28k and the rest of the world who paid for shipping have 420? are the pebbles being shipped out in order of backer?

According tot he stats posted further down in this comment thread and the latest stats on the ispebbleshipping.com site as of today that haven't actually shipped anything in the past six days...
They are still listed as being 1000 shipped to USA and 420 to the rest of the world.

I wouldn't count on it coming anytime soon. I got that email six days ago now, stating that my black pebble was ready and although I logged into my account immediately and checked my address etc. it took a while to move into the next stage of order processing. Its been like that for a few days now and still hasn't shipped. The email stating my pebble was ready came on the 29th - whats the delay here? Whilst patience may be a virtue I don't have any! I want my pebble! :-)

@Ryan, I feel for the folks that backed a colored option, especially for those that switched from black. I hope they will fill color orders based on backer order regardless of when the color switch was made, i.e. you don't fall to the back of the line as is your concern. I have to believe that running only black in the beginning was a tough call by Eric, but one that he clearly felt was the right choice for the project. He did indicate that it didn't mean that all the black pebbles would be run first. I have no idea what the issue was, it could be that they had expected some of the dedicated color tooling to be ready sooner, or inspection of the tooling found flaws. Some have suggested that the same tooling is being used and to switch plastic colors requires cleaning, priming, etc. between colors. Regardless of the reason, I do believe it was unplanned and somewhat out of their control. Hang in the man.

I love the ispebbleshipping.com website, it's a great way to keep up on production progress. However, I can not view it on my phone anymore since it incorporated the Flash based graph, would it be possible to return it to a non-Flash based state or have a mobile friendly version?

I'm annoyed by the color being the dictating facor... I pleged on 4/11/2012 2:01 PM and because I chose grey I won't be getting mine until after people who ordered in may? Normally I'm a relaxed and calm person but that will really make me mad if I'm one of the later people to get one based on color selection alone..

Oy, I backed this on April 13th, for the black. No sign of any address confirmation at all, despite the fact I've kept my information current on the website.

Ironically it still says that these are scheduled to be shipped/delivered in Sept 2012. Yes, I fully understand the problems inherent in designing/building something new in such huge quantities, but these very vague updates about shipping are really, really irritating.

@Adam Weisblat your Motorola Defy Xt you just bought runs gingerbread, 2.3. This came out in December 6 2010. I would personally demand a refund from my carrier, so still selling a phone with software over two years old. It looks like its a $99 phone. Why bother, the 4S is $99 or the iPhone 4 is $0.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, guys? < 500 still? Like other here, it would be nice to have some more realistic updates. I funded this thing almost a year ago, and my update status says, "we have your money, sucker!" When are you going to ship more than 500???

Can you give us some realistic idea of when all backers should expect to see their device. Your update at CES of shipping starting last week was a bit disingenuous considering that you're current production rate and the number of backers. Even though you "started" shipping some of us could still be months away from receiving a watch. A little more reality and less excitement in your updates would be appreciated.

As your distribution center is in Hong Kong, will all backers based in Hong Kong get a refund on the additional fee? Seems not quite justified as the US backers didn't need to pay any additional fee, the maths doesn't quite work out.

If I am doing my math right we are talking 6-10 weeks for all kick starter orders being delivered. That's not that bad... Key is the yield at the factory needs to get to 2400 a day with strong quality fast as possible. Rest is easy.

Just to put some of the shipping dates in perspective, I backed the project on April 11th for a black early bird and have not received a shipping notification so I doubt very many have been shipped to backers. I'm not complaining but I wouldn't keep checking your mailboxes just yet.